


“Just don’t let go of me, okay?”

by Kariki



Series: Climbing Class Prompts [2]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, I took a fluffy prompt and angsted all over it, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Prompt Fic, These idiots finally admit their feelings, mentioned panic attacks, mentions of past suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariki/pseuds/Kariki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh had turned down ECT before and everything had gone to shit.  If this is what he had to do to get better, he'll do it - for Chris as well as himself.</p><p>AU where Josh was rescued with the rest of the group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Just don’t let go of me, okay?”

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompted: What about the first time they say ‘I love you’.
> 
> WARNINGS: Talk of Old Fashioned Mental Illness ‘Treatments’ (Lobotomies/Old Fashioned Electroshock), mentions of suicidal thoughts, and other triggers along those lines.
> 
> Originally posted on my tumblr ( http://kariki.tumblr.com/ )

Josh had been diagnosed with his illness when he was eleven years old. 

He couldn’t remember everything about that day, whether it was hot outside or unusually chilly or what he was wearing, what he had eaten for breakfast, none of it… but he could remember sitting in Dr. Harris’s office. The feeling of sitting in that uncomfortable chair, his feet barely touching the floor, as the adults in the room talked around him.

Josh had barely heard them speaking, instead his mind had been occupied with every horror trope about hospitals he could remember. Straitjackets and padded rooms, large men in scrubs that held people down while doctors shoved needles into them. The worse was the thought of lobotomies and electroshock therapy.

He had been dimly aware that no one did lobotomies anymore but to his young mind, the fear that he might be the exception was almost overwhelming, but the shock therapy he knew was still a thing. He remembered the feeling of his young heart pounding in fear at the possibility of them tying him down and putting the electrodes on his head and frying his brain until he was a cucumber.

When he was nineteen, that fear resurfaced with a vengeance.

Hannah and Beth were gone and he wanted so badly to join them. It was Dr. Hill – calm, collected, trustworthy Dr. Hill – that suggested that, if his meds weren’t working anymore that it was possible ECT would alleviate the worse of his symptoms.

The panic attack that followed had been one of the worse he ever had.

They had given him different meds after that, hoping maybe this one would stick.

Look how that had worked out.

Josh closed his eyes and tried to take deep breathes, just like he was suppose to. He sat at the end of his hospital bed, his fingers digging into the overly mattress but nothing seemed to help calm his racing nerves.

“Y-You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Josh…” The bed dipped as Chris slowly sat down beside him. “I mean… there’s got to be some other meds and I’ll be around more to make sure you stay on them. So will Sam. I know this scares the shit out of you…”

“No,” Josh was surprised by how steady his voice actually sounded. “I can’t let this happen again, Chris. I… I turned it down before and I got… I almost got everyone killed.”

“No, fucking cannibal monsters from the pits of Hell almost got everyone killed.”

“I took us up there,” Josh shook his head, “because I thought my dead sisters wanted me too. A-And when things went to shit? I-I-I was too busy losing my fucking mind to do anything! Fuck, you guys could have been killed because I was tripping my balls off!”

“Josh, that wasn’t your fault…”

“It was enough my fault.” Josh shook his head and looked over to Chris. “I…I need to do this, Cochise. I… I need to be able to say I tried everything.”

Chris stared at him for a few moments before nodding. “Yeah… yeah, alright. I can understand that.”

Josh let out the breathe he had been holding. 

“It’s not as bad as it used to be,” Chris shrugged and Josh could see the pamphlet Dr. Hill had given him the other day, detailing further what the procedure would involve. “You won’t even be awake for it… and Dr. Hill said I could be there if you wanted… just in case.”

“Yeah… yeah, I know.” Josh swallowed hard as his throat clamped up in fear. “Just… I don’t want to talk about it…”

“… Right.” Chris nodded curtly, tucking the pamphlet out of sight. “No, I understand. But I’ll be there, you know. Just in case.”

It was the just in case he was afraid of…

“Chris,” Josh turned so that he was facing him, “if… if something does happen, there’s some things I need to say…”

“Nothings going to happen,” Chris started to say, “You’ll be fine, Josh.”

“Humor me, Cochise,” Josh insisted. “I’m running on fear induced bravery here and I… I need to get it out just in case I don’t get another chance.”

“Josh…”

Josh didn’t let him finish.

He closed the short distance between them and pressed a kiss to the corner of Chris’s mouth. It might not have landed quite where he wanted but it did its job and stopped more of Chris’s assurances before he could keep making them.

Josh pulled back just enough to meet Chris’s gaze, to judge his reaction and see if this was as big of a mistake as he always feared. Chris stared back at him in awed shock.

“Did you just…” Chris reached up to touch his mouth, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Cochise… Chris…” Josh took a deep breath, “I love you. I-I-I don’t mean in the 'you’ve been my best friend since 3rd grade’ way or the 'you’ve always been there for me, even when I’m a massive asshole’ way, even though both of those are true, but in the cliched 'friend pining away in silence’ way.”

“I… I, uh,” Chris stammered.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know nothing bad is _suppose_ to happen but nothing bad is ever suppose to happen, you know?” Josh rushed out, his heart pounding even faster than it was before. “I just… I just can’t let it go unsaid. T-That almost happened up on that mountain and I just… I needed to say it.”

Josh sat back, pulling away from Chris to give him room to breathe. “I… I would understand i-if you change your mind. About being there… here… for this.”

“For fuck’s sake, Josh,” Chris broke out of the trance the kiss had put him in and closed the distance between them again. He placed a hand on Josh’s cheek, careful not to disturb the bandage there. Josh kept his head steady and watched as Chris moved closer and, when Josh didn’t move to stop him, pressed a kiss to his lips.

“I love you too,” Chris sighed against Josh’s lips, breaking the kiss. “I’ve loved you since forever, man. I just thought… I thought you didn’t feel the same.”

Josh scoffed softly, reaching a hand up to the back of Chris’s neck, keeping him close.

“We’re fucking idiots, aren’t we?”

“The biggest,” Chris agreed before leaning forward to press another kiss to Josh’s lips.

There was a knock on the door and a polite but pointed cough. They pulled apart reluctantly and looked to the nurse.

“It’s time to get you ready,” the nurse told them with same reassuring smile all the nurses and doctor’s seemed to wear.

“You ready?” Chris asked, reaching down to take Josh’s hand in his own.

“Not really,” Josh admitted, squeezing Chris’s fingers. “Just don’t let go of me, okay?”

“Never.”


End file.
